The Vuandalic Alphabet According To Teseo Ambrogio

Abstract

A Sixteenth Century alphabetical compendium, Teseo Ambrogio's Introductio in Chaldaicum linguam, Syriacam atque Armenicam et decem alias linguas, characterum diferentium Alphabeta circiter quadraginta, et eonumdem invicem conformatio; mnystica et chabalistica quamplurima scitu digna. Et descriptio ac simulachrum Phagoti Afrani. Teseo Ambrosio ex Comitibus Albonesii J. U. Doct. Papien. Canonico Regulari Lateranensi, ac Sancti Petri in Coelo Aureo Papiae Praeposito, Authore. MDXXXIX, contains examples and comparisons of over 10 alphabets of Western and Oriental languages while including some 30 examples of ciphers as well. Generally, these are kept quite distinct, with the ciphers contained in an appendix; however, the Gothic and a Runic alphabet appear among the ciphers and some rather curious candidates for alphabetical legitimacy are included in the book's main sections: one of these is the socalled Vuandalic Alphabet Ambrogio's Vuandalic alphabet is quite a mystery. Almost all other referenced alphabets are given as simple tables or are discussed in one chapter at length; this one, however, is literally strewn throughout the book. Nonetheless, the alphabet is of such importance, in Ambrogio's opinion, that he gives it a separate item number in his table of contents so that readers could examine it as a whole. The numerical order of the letters is given for only some of the hand-written exempla and all of the examples seem to be compared to Coptic, Dalmatian, Macedonian (Bulgarian) or Armenian. As we will see below, only one letter is given in a massive comparison of all of the alphabets he had discussed up to that point I will give all of the Latin commentary on this alphabet and a list of the letters included in the text. Where the order is questionable, I will mark the letter with a question mark. Note that this Vuandalic hardly seems to have a phonology expected of a language related to Gothic. Could this be a Slavic language (Wendish for instance) whose name has undergone a slight phonetic deformation? The major alphabets of the work had special fonts created for them, but the. Arabic, Ethiopic, Coptic, Dalmatian, Cyrillic, Vuandalic and a number of other occasionally referenced alphabets were written in by hand. Only a few of the some hundred printed exempla were actually put through this completing process as it must have been done by Ambrogio himself and he was very frail at the time and soon to die. The examples of the book in the Mechitarian Ubrary of Venice, in the Newberry and in Paris are complete; others in the Matenadaran in Yerevan and in various sale catalogues have proven not to be. It is therefore important to have a completed copy of the work to be able to examine the Vuandalic and many of the authors wnrting about Ambrogio and his book did not have thiis opportulnity. I have created a Vuandalic bitmap 'font' using Fontographer. I have followed Ambrogio's hand as closely as possible by using a scanned stencil. It is asssumed that differences may appear between the realizations of the letters found in different examples of the book; I have been able to compare only three completed copies anld some four uncompleted. The table below is the first complete representation of the alphabet thiat I am aware of.